Statement

Written with Berta Gerzonová, born 10. 1. 1921, residing in Prague 1., Dlouhá St. 46, former prisoner of the concentration camps: Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Flossenbürge — work commando Oederan, Jewish nationality, profession clerk.

October 23rd, 1944. The day we boarded the transport. We had already come to terms with the fact that the same hardships and suffering that thousands and thousands of our sisters and brothers had gone through now awaited us. We didn’t know where they would take us, we only knew that it would be worse and far more terrible than what we had already experienced. We were ready for the transport. The same day that we marched past Rahm, we started to get our things ready and pack. We sorted, packed, and then sorted and packed some more. Practically the entire staff of the home was leaving, and so we also had to take care of the children. Our luggage and the things we wanted to take with us were finally ready. And we had a lot. We had planned for the eventuality that our luggage wouldn’t get there in one piece, or wouldn’t get there at all, and we took so many things with us we could barely move them. Winter is coming and we mustn’t go bare, we told ourselves and so we put on underwear, dresses, several blouses and sweaters, skirts, coats, and on top of all that, if we had one, a work suit. Three pairs of socks, warm socks, and sturdy shoes. If the luggage got lost, this would last us at least a year and then, God willing, hopefully, hopefully our suffering would end. We were finally ready and prepared, which meant that we had to go to the barracks. The train was ready. The remaining children loaded the luggage onto a cart and we went to the Hamburg barracks. There, we handed in our luggage and then went into the barracks. I wrote down my name and the number that was on the board hanging around my neck. Then we went upstairs into the reserved rooms. They were almost full. There were mostly women and children there. Mostly children, because almost all of the orphans were leaving with the remaining Jügendfürsorge staff. There are children of all ages. The smaller ones were with their caregivers. We were moved to tears. Not because of our plight, but because of the children whose fate was certain death. That night, we managed to get out of the barracks. I walked once more through Theresienstadt and said goodbye to the places where life was hard, but we got used to it. I returned to the barracks and layed down, fully clothed, on my pallet to sleep for a little while.

At 7 o’clock in the morning — boarding time. We entered basically according to our numbers. We had children from our home in our care, with whom we had experienced so much worry yet so much joy as well. They were about 60 of them and some older foster children and their mothers were with us as well. We managed to persuade the Transportleitung to give us a carriage for the children and caregivers. At the last minute, they added several elderly people, who made our difficult trip even harder. There were 71 of us in the carriage, besides the suitcases, bags, and other luggage. We sat, tightly packed in, one right next to the other. In the middle, they left a little space for a bottle of water and a bucket. We departed from Theresienstadt and waited in Bohušovice for more people to board the transport and for departure. The carriage was a cattle car. They sealed the doors and wired the windows shut except for a small slit. It was extremely hot and humid in the carriage. We soon realized that we wouldn’t be able to breathe. The carriage was overcrowded with people, and the bucket, containing excrement that we couldn’t empty out, added to the oppressive air. As soon as the train would stop, soldiers would patrol around it. We asked them if we could open the window a little. They didn’t allow it. We had no choice but to help ourselves. By some coincidence, someone had

a pair of pliers. While the train was in motion, we loosened the wires until we could finally open the window. As soon as the train stopped, we pushed the window back into place and hid the wires so well that the patrol didn’t notice that they were loose. We managed to fool them for a long time. On the side where the children were sitting by the window and had done the same to it, the wire fell out of the window. The patrol found it and flew into a rage. We had to close the windows because they were threatening to shoot us. The air in the carriage was unbearable, and we opened the window again as soon as the train started moving.

We finished the bottle of water (5 liters) that we had brought with us from Theresienstadt. When the train would stop we would beg the SSmen to allow us to fetch some water somewhere. Of course, they forbade it. The children in the carriage were crying because they were thirsty, and so we sat and entertained the children to help them forget. We began to dream of a time when we were allowed to drink enough water, although we lacked so many other things. Many of us were overcome with nostalgia: Dear Theresienstadt. There, we were at least allowed to drink water. After we’d been on the train for over 24 hours, we turned our attention to the direction it was going in. We found out that we were going east. We saw Gleiwitz, Hindenburg, the edges of mines and factories. We guessed that we were headed for Birkenau. In our imaginations, it was a ghetto, not as organized and perfect as Theresienstadt, but still a ghetto, because we had received letters from there from our friends and relatives. In the evening, on the second day of our ride, we arrived at the Birkenau station and our hearts skipped a beat out of happiness. We thought about our loved ones who were here. We imagined that we would see them, maybe some of them would be waiting at the station for us. We were very disappointed when we rode through the station without stopping. We withheld this from the others to keep them calm. We rode through the Auschwitz station. We looked through the slits of the window that we closed immediately afterwards because we expected the train to stop at any minute. Those of us sitting by the window were gripped with terror after reading the names of the stations, but we remained silent to keep the others from finding out. The train stopped and then started to move in the opposite direction. It was completely quiet in the carriage, but then someone suddenly said: Auschwitz. If a bomb had exploded, it couldn’t have set off a greater panic. The women wailed and cried; the men screamed. The children were terrified. We looked through the slits in the window. We saw a lit yard with buildings surrounded by an electric fence. Every 5 meters there was an electric lamp. A concentration camp — electric fence. Lord, help us, I want to be anywhere except between these wires. We wanted to run away, hide somewhere. But we couldn’t. We were locked in the carriage, there were patrols outside who were shooting. The train stopped. It was quiet outside, we could only hear the patrols’ footsteps, and inside the carriage — darkness and sheer panic. Then we heard them opening the carriages next to ours, we heard Yiddish being spoken. Our hope surged when we saw that there were Jews there. Suddenly, an order: everything out, the luggage stays in the carriages. The men exited separately. We took the children by the hand and left the train. Women and children moved forward. An SSman stood at the crossing and waved his cane this way and that. And we saw people going either left or right depending on the direction he waved his cane in. Children and old people on one side, young people on the other. I finally came to stand before the SSman: Ist das ihr Kind? When I told him no, he asked me how old the child was and waved his cane to the right. As I went, I turned around to look for my sister. Thank God, she was behind me. They made us stand in 5 rows and then we started walking. In about 10 minutes, we veered off the path and found ourselves among a tangle of wires near brick buildings and a mound of luggage. We were eager and impatient and asked the SSman questions. He answered brusquely, but we managed to learn something. We would apparently be reunited with our families. But first we had to make our way immediately to the baths and our things had to be disinfected. They took us to a large, cold room. They took away our bread bags in which we had our last supply of food. There were women here as well, who were, unlike the men who were dressed in striped clothing and plate-shaped hats, dressed like civilians except that they had a red line on their backs. We weren’t wearing a Jewish star. Several SSmen enter, among them the one we knew from the train station. We were ordered to take off our clothes. We took off our coats and waited. They shouted at us to speed it up, the Obersturmführer was waiting. We protested and said that there were men in the room. They shouted and beat us. And so we had to strip off our clothes. We were allowed to keep our

shoes, but not on our feet, we had to hold them in our hands. We stand in line in front of a bench where they removed our rings, watches, and jewels both valuable and worthless. We stood in rows, naked, and saw our things, which we had set on the ground in piles, being thrown around. The women and men who worked there flung themselves upon them like hyenas and picked off the things they needed. When we protested, they shouted at us and beat us and we realized that the only thing that still belonged to us was our life. After we showered we would apparently get new clothing. We marched, undressed, before the SSman, who sent the weaker ones aside. In another room, they took away our hair clips and combs. There were several women there with shaving equipment. We thought they would cut some of our hair off for reasons of hygiene. A fat woman stood by the window talking with another dressed in an SS uniform. We saw SS women for the first time in our lives. One of the female employees asked her something. We heard: Alles herunter. And we saw the first in line get her head shaved, her hair falling to the floor. In a moment, a beautiful, cultured woman was transformed into something that resembled an ape. And so it went, one after another. After I was altered in this way, I looked around for my sister. Although it was not allowed, I walked around the room several times until I heard her voice. We went into another room to shower. We held our shoes in our hands like they were the most valuable thing, because they were the only things of ours that we had left. Several men and women had already tried to take them from us or exchange something for them. They told us that the Germans would take them from us. But we didn’t give them away. We still hoped that we could at least hold on to our shoes. So they wouldn’t get stolen, we took them with us to the showers. Better wet than not at all. We had no soap to wash ourselves with, nor towels to dry ourselves off. The water ran sometimes lukewarm and sometimes ice cold. We left the showers wet and stood in another cold room and waited to see what would happen. We were desperate, we were cold, we were devastated and powerless. And so we concentrated on what awaited us. Clothing. How ironic. They brought us a bag of rags. Dust billowed as they threw it on the ground. They gave us dresses, summer clothes, dirty and torn and not enough to cover our naked bodies. We supposedly didn’t need underwear. They also gave us coats, dirty, and either too big or too small, all torn. They originally didn’t want to give us socks. But we begged for them and they relented. But they purposefully gave us mismatched pairs. They paired a grey one with a black one, a white with a brown, etc. They gave us a dirty rag to cover our heads with. Instead of shoes, we got a pair of wooden slippers, each in a different size and of varying quality. Thus equipped, we entered another room, which we were told we’d be sleeping in. There was nothing inside except for the cold stone floor. Tired as we were, we sat down on the floor, but couldn’t sleep. We were freezing and lacked pants or a shirt. We were alone for a moment. Then some men entered, and we complained to them. Some do-gooders came forward who were willing to acquire clothes for us, but for a price that I can’t bring myself to discuss. Unfortunately, some of us were willing to pay this price. And so we witnessed terrible things that we will never be able to forget. For a piece of bread, for a shirt or a pair of pants, for a cigarette, all things that were unattainable to us, they went into the bathrooms with the men. One of the bathemployees guarded the doors. They returned with a piece of bread or an item of clothing. It was enough information for us to realize the situation we were in. We spent our first night in Auschwitz on a stone floor, in the dirt, cold, and exposed to prostitution.

In the morning, they took us beyond the electric fence to other electric fences, where we went hungry and stood during roll calls for 4 days and nights until they took us, physically and mentally destroyed, through another selection, to Germany to work for our parents’ murderers and manufacture munitions that would be used against our friends.

Berta Gerzonová

Statement accepted by:

B. Gerzonová

Signature of witnesses:

Helena Schicková

Alex. Schmiedt

On behalf of the Documentation Campaign:

19. XI. 1945 Scheck

On behalf of the archive:

Alex. Schmiedt